


Mostly to Yourself

by houdini74



Series: Clint and Marcy [3]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 06:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19126618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houdini74/pseuds/houdini74
Summary: The story so far, this time from Marcy's perspective.





	Mostly to Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is a prequel to my other two Marcy and Clint stories. It's a bit of dive into the dynamics between Patrick and his mom, how we lie to ourselves, how keeping secrets is hard and how worry often sounds like criticism. Communicating with family can be hard and I feel like Patrick "I need to explain a few things" Brewer probably didn't leave things in the best place with his parents when he moved to Schitt's Creek.
> 
> Title is from Noah Reid's song of the same name and along the same theme.

“Hi mom.”

“Patrick! Honey, how are you?” 

She tries to hold back the worry and concern from her voice, not sure how he will react. When he’d left so abruptly two days ago, she’d wanted to chase after him, to demand that he tell her why. Why he needed to leave, why he wanted to walk away from everything in his life. Instead, she and Clint had stood and watched as he put his bags and his guitar into his car, hugging him tearfully one last time before he drove away to a place he didn’t know and that she could barely find on a map.

“Good, it’s good.” 

“Are you settling in okay?” 

She feels like she needs to be careful with everything she says. She couldn’t bear it if their relationship became more strained than she feels like it already is, if in addition to running away, her son shut her out even more.

“Yeah, Ray seems really nice and his business...businesses are a mess, so there’s lots for me to do.”

“Good, that’s good.”

There’s a long silence. She blinks away the tears that are threatening. He’d had everything that she’d thought he had always wanted, a decent job, a nice fiancee. She can’t understand what has forced him to leave, to end things with Rachel, to quit his job and move hundreds of kilometers away from them.

“Patrick…”

“Mom…”

They speak at the same time, both stopping before Patrick starts again. 

“Mom, I have to do this. I know you don’t understand why, but it’s the right thing for me.”

“Okay, honey.” The tears have returned. “Just...be sure to call, okay?”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He does call. Every week, he calls, their conversations gradually growing less awkward, less strained. And yet, so much is going unsaid between them. They are both being cautious, stepping away from the sharp edges, not wanting to accidentally cut themselves or each other. 

She wants him to be happy. The look on his face as he drove away had been closed and tense and she could see how unhappy he was. Even as she worries, she wants to believe that he’s making the right choice by leaving this place where he’s spent his entire life, that trying something new will bring him the happiness he’s seeking. 

She wants him to be happy. She just wishes he could find that happiness a little closer to home.

He’s been gone for three weeks when the phone rings at seven o’clock on Sunday, the same time as he’s called each of the last two weeks. She suspects that he’s set an alert on his phone, that he wants to call so she won’t worry, but that whatever has compelled him away to move from home has also turned their phone calls into an obligation instead of a pleasure.

“Hi honey.”

“Hi mom.”

“How are you, honey?”

She’s not sure what to ask him. He hasn’t shared many details of his job or the town he’s moved to or the people he’s met. And she hasn’t wanted to ask too many questions for fear of pushing him away. Everything feels like a question mark. She can’t remember a time when she knew less about his life.

“I’m great...actually, I have some news.”

His voice isn’t as flat as it has been the last times they’ve spoken. There’s a note of excitement humming beneath the surface. She tries to remember when she last heard him be excited about something. She wants to believe that it had been when he and Rachel had gotten engaged. But she’s not sure. She pushes the thought away, not wanting to think about the fact that she might have overlooked how he’d felt all along.

“I just signed the paperwork to go into business with someone here in town. It’s a start up, but I think the business model is really sustainable and David, David Rose, my business partner has some really creative ideas. He’ll handle the aesthetics and suppliers and I’ll bring the business side of things. I think it could really be a success.”

“Oh honey, this is all happening so quickly. Are you sure it’s the right choice?” 

As soon as she says the words, she wants to take them back. She hopes that he can’t hear the reservations in her voice. It seems so sudden. The worry she’s been holding on to since he’d gotten into his car and driven away increases. He’s only just moved to this town and now he’s jumping into a business relationship with someone he’s barely known for a month. She knows that building a business from the ground up will be hard work and more than that, it will mean that he will start to put down roots in this other place, so far away from them. 

“I’ve worked with David to put the business plan together, I think it’s solid.”

He sounds defensive now and she wishes that she hadn’t said anything. Whatever he’s been searching for, she hopes that this business will be the start of something that will make him happy.

“Patrick, you know I only want what’s best for you. If you think this is a good investment, then I’m happy for you.” 

“Thanks, mom.”

The excitement in his voice is tempered now, as though she’s accidentally taken something from him. She can feel him pull back and she thinks they’re both relieved when she turns the conversation in a different direction. She tells him about his cousin’s wedding and Clint’s plan to redo the basement and the new grocery store that’s opened in town. He laughs at her description of the recent confusion over the town’s first garden festival and they are both very careful not to talk any further about his plans or what it might mean for his future.

Over the next few weeks, Patrick starts to share stories about the new store and his business partner. He talks about the products they’ll be selling and their plans for a soft launch. On one call, he asks if she knows what body milk is and is laughingly annoyed when she says that she does. She’s sure there’s a story there, most likely to do with the seemingly mercurial David Rose, but she doesn’t press him. 

Patrick has let slip enough of the details about David’s past that she’s felt compelled to google him. The articles and social media posts that she finds have done nothing to alleviate her worries about Patrick’s new business relationship. Based on the stories, David is clearly used to a big city lifestyle filled with drugs and parties and celebrities. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t reconcile the stories with Patrick’s descriptions of David or with the future she had once thought that Patrick wanted for himself.

Rose Apothecary. The name is faintly ridiculous and from the way Patrick said it when he told her, she suspects that he finds it amusing as well. She’s marked the date of the store opening on the calendar that hangs on their fridge and she’s started following their page on Facebook. She checks it daily even though the only thing that’s been posted is a photo of the store with the words “Coming Soon to Schitt’s Creek” typed across it. 

She wants confirmation that Patrick is going to be okay. That he could even be happy. 

The day after the opening, she visits the store’s Facebook page again. Finally, there’s an update on the page, an album of photographs with the message ‘Thank you for a fantastic opening!’ has been added. She flips through the images, stopping on a photo of David and Patrick standing together in the doorway of the store. They have their arms around each other’s shoulders as they smile into the camera. 

It’s her first glimpse of David other than the old photos she’s seen online. He’s wearing clothes that she doesn’t understand and he looks different than she expected, more relaxed. But it’s Patrick who holds her attention. She can’t remember the last time she saw him smile like that. For the first time she allows herself to believe that he might not have made a mistake, that giving up everything to move to a strange place might have been the right decision for him.

She shows the photo to Clint, wanting to know if he sees what she sees. He smiles when he sees it.

“He looks happy.” Clint sounds pleased and a little regretful. She knows that he also worries about Patrick’s decision to leave so suddenly.

“He does, doesn’t he.”

“Is that his business partner? What is he wearing?”

Patrick phones the next night, right on schedule.

“Hi mom.”

“Hello, honey.”

She can hear the change in his voice, he sounds relaxed, happy. 

“I saw the photos of the store, it looks like the opening went well?”

“It was a big success. We nearly made our month’s revenue target on the first day.” 

She can tell he’s smiling as he talks about revenue projections and sales figures and inventory targets. His voice softens, just a little, as he talks about how David has negotiated with their vendors and the types of products David wants to source for the store. He’s found something, she realizes, this store has given him part of what he was searching for. 

“I can’t wait to see the store in person.” 

There’s a long pause from Patrick, followed by a tense laugh. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said her son was nervous. 

“We probably won’t be able to get away any time soon, though. Have you thought about coming back for a visit?”

She knows the minute she says the words that it’s too soon. That whatever is driving Patrick will continue to keep him away.

“I...um...I’m not...I’m not sure.” 

The rest of the conversation is awkward and they hang up not long after. She’s relieved that Patrick seems to be happier than he has been but it makes her sad that he’s not ready to come home. That he may never be ready to come home.

It’s a Wednesday when she learns that her Aunt Gladys has passed away. They weren’t close and she’s not sure if Patrick remembers meeting her, but she feels like she should phone and let him know. She tries his cell, but there’s no answer. Taking a deep breath, she looks up the number for Rose Apothecary and calls the store instead.

“Rose Apothecary, this is David Rose.”

For a moment she’s surprised, having forgotten about the possibility that David might answer the phone instead of Patrick.

“David, it’s Marcy Brewer...Patrick’s mom?”

“Hi Mrs Brewer. Patrick just ran over to the cafe. He should be back any second, do you want him to call you back?”

“Thank you David.”

She’s never spoken to Patrick’s business partner. She feels like she should make an effort to get to know him, to ask him questions about himself. For a second, all she can think about are the stories that she’s read online about David and his family. 

“How...how is the store? Patrick says things are going well?”

“It’s going very well. It would be even better if some of our customers could figure out that just because we gave discounts on opening day, that doesn’t mean they get lifetime discounts!”

She laughs at his outraged comment. Somehow, even though this is the first time they’ve spoken, she can’t resist teasing him. “Well David, you know they say the customer is always right.” 

There’s a long pause and she worries that she’s overstepped. 

“Okay.” She can tell that he’s pretending to be annoyed. “Well, that’s removed any doubts I had that you were some stranger impersonating Patrick’s mom. No one else teases me like this.”

“I’m sorry David. I probably should have waited until our second phone call before I made fun of you.” She can’t help herself, there’s just something about David that invites this sort of casual banter.

“Okay. I’m glad to say that Patrick’s back from the cafe, so maybe you can tease him now.”

In the background she hears the bell on the door ring and Patrick’s voice taunting David with the same tone she’d used moments ago.

“Sorry your caramel macchiato took Twyla so long to prepare. Maybe if you ordered a simpler drink it wouldn’t take her three tries to get it right.”

“It’s your mom.” David’s voice is distant and she can hear muffled sounds as the phone is passed over to Patrick. 

She likes David Rose. From what she’d read online, she’d expected someone different, someone aloof and arrogant who was only interested in superficial things. But she can see that there’s something deeper to David. It makes her feel better about Patrick’s sudden decision to go into business with him.

A few weeks later, she’s in the grocery store when she runs into Rachel. 

“Marcy!” 

Rachel gives her a quick hug and they look at each other awkwardly for a moment. She’s always liked Rachel and she’s never really understood why she and Patrick have struggled to make things work. 

“Have you spoken to Patrick?” Rachel’s voice is quiet and Marcy can hear the longing that she’s trying to disguise.

She tells Rachel what she knows about the store and Patrick’s life in Schitt’s Creek. She doesn’t want to interfere, but surely no harm can come from letting Rachel know about her son’s life. She pushes away the little voice that says that Patrick might not want Rachel to know where he’s gone or what he’s doing. Patrick has known Rachel since they were teenagers, it’s impossible to imagine him keeping secrets from her.

That Sunday, Patrick doesn’t call. Instead, at the usual time, she gets a text. It’s short and abrupt. 

**7:01 pm: Did you tell Rachel where I am?**

Her heart sinks. The fears she’s hidden from herself about her conversation with Rachel rise to the surface. She doesn’t want to have this conversation by text. She tries to call but Patrick doesn’t pick up. 

The next day she tries to call him again, but he still doesn’t answer. She thinks about calling the store but decides against it, suspecting it would just make Patrick even angrier.

She’s angry with herself. She knows that she shouldn’t have talked to Rachel about Patrick but they’ve been so close over the years. It had seemed so natural to talk with her son’s former fiance about where he was and what he was doing. But she’s angry with Patrick as well. Angry with him for leaving, for not telling them why or for sharing details about his new life. 

She reads Patrick’s text again. She still hasn’t responded and he still isn’t answering her calls. She tries to distill her thoughts into the right words. She types and erases the text message several times before she finally sends the reply.

_10:14 am: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to Rachel._

She can see that Patrick has read her message but for a long time there’s no response. Eventually she sees the three dots appear that indicate that he’s typing a reply. She closes her eyes with relief, letting go of the lingering worry that he might have wanted to cut off all communication.

**10:26 am: I wish you hadn’t.**   
**10:28 am: But I probably should have talked to her before I left.**

That night, at seven o’clock, he calls. He sounds tired and anxious, his voice is flat as they talk. She wants to ask if he’s okay, if she can help, if he wants to talk. Instead she tries to follow his lead, talking about the weather and the store and telling him about the new restaurant she and Clint tried the week before. Her heart aches when they hang up, she knows he’s unhappy and that she’s partly to blame.

Slowly they ease back into the routine they’d been starting to build before she’d spoken to Rachel. Patrick calls on Sunday evenings and they talk for half an hour or so, mostly she tells him about things going on at home and he shares details about the store. The happiness and excitement has returned to his voice when they talk, he’s enthusiastic about the business he’s building with David. She’s careful not to ask about other, more personal topics and she can tell that he’s holding things back from her. For the first time she truly understands that he meant it when he had asked for time and space and so she’s determined to give it to him, to let him set the pace of their conversations and their relationship.

She knows things are starting to get better between them when Patrick starts to share stories about the store other than the latest sales numbers and product lines. He tells her about David’s first time organizing a baby shower and she laughs imagining David’s response to the dollar store decorations. She’s never met David, but from their phone conversations, Patrick’s descriptions and the photos she’s seen of the store, she feels like she knows him a little.

Patrick’s been gone for nearly a year now and she desperately wants to ask if he’s planning to visit for the holidays but she doesn’t want him to feel like she’s pressuring him. It’s just after Thanksgiving when he calls. Sunday night, the usual time.

“Hi mom.” 

“How are you, honey?”

“I’m good. Things are starting to pick up at the store for the holidays.”

She knows this is her opportunity to ask if he’s planning to come home, but she can’t quite form the words. 

“So...I...um...I don’t think I’m going to make it home for Christmas.” She can tell he’s worried that she’ll be upset and his words rush together. “There’s just a lot happening at the store and I don’t feel right leaving David alone…”

“I understand.” She does understand. Even though this will be the first Christmas that they’ve spent apart as a family, she understands. It’s a long way to come and she knows that things still aren’t completely right between them. “You won’t be alone on Christmas Day, will you?”

“No, I’ll spend the day with David...and his family.” His voice softens. She’s grateful to Patrick’s business partner for including her son in his plans, she knows it’s not easy making friends in a new place but Patrick and David seem to have developed a friendship that extends beyond their business relationship. 

After the holidays, their relationship continues to improve. She still tries to avoid asking questions that might be too personal, but he volunteers information more easily. He even sends some pictures from the past few months, there are a couple of shots from Christmas, with what she assumes is David’s family. Patrick looks relaxed amidst the festive holiday decorations.

She calls the store occasionally, speaking to David as often as Patrick. It’s obvious that David is fond of her son, he speaks easily of the things they are doing together, frequently sharing more details than Patrick does. Any of her early apprehensions about David have long since evaporated. She likes his confidence and is amused by his overly dramatic view of the world. She suspects that’s why Patrick enjoys his friendship as well, that he needs someone like David who is so different from himself.

Even though she can see how fully the store has become part of his life in Schitt’s Creek, it’s not until he phones to say that he’s moving into his own apartment that she begins to accept that he’s probably never moving home, that he’ll never go back to how things were before.

“We’re going to look at places tomorrow.” He’s happy and excited again but he’s caught her off guard. Has he been seeing someone and not told them because of Rachel?

“We?”

“Um...well...Ray has been helping me find a place. You remember that real estate is one of his businesses?”

She can sense a note of caution in his voice. She hopes he’s not feeling that she’s upset about him taking this step. She’s happy for him. Mostly. She wishes he were closer, but the increasing happiness she sees from him takes away most of that hurt.

“Maybe once you’ve moved in, we can come for a visit?”

His laugh sounds brittle but he responds warmly enough.

“I’d like that. I’ll let you know when there’s a good time.”

The conversation shifts, he tells her about the baseball team that he’s joined and that he’s thinking about auditioning for a community production of Cabaret in a few weeks. She’s relieved that they’ve moved past most of the tension that had marked many of their previous conversations, but she can tell that he’s still holding something back. She doesn’t press him, she knows that neither of them are keen to open old wounds.

When David calls her unexpectedly a few weeks later, she’s surprised and pleased by the invitation to Patrick’s surprise party. Finally, she’ll get to see into Patrick’s new life, to visit the store he and David have built, to see his apartment, to meet his friends. She thinks again how lucky Patrick is to have found a friend and business partner in David Rose.

But more than seeing the places that he lives and works, she’s mostly anxious to see her son again, to look at him and know if he’s truly happy. She misses him. She misses having him live across town, having him stop by on weekends. But she remembers the shadow that would sometimes pass across his face and the regret in his eyes. If building a new life has chased those things away, she can’t resent him for it.

Everything gets unbalanced when they arrive at the Rosebud Motel before Patrick’s party. Johnny’s off-hand comment about Patrick and David’s relationship causes a thousand different pieces to fall into place. Patrick’s reluctance to have them visit, his desire to stay here at Christmas, his anger at having Rachel show up unexpectedly, even David’s chattiness when they talk on the phone, everything makes sense to her now.

It hurts that all this time Patrick has been hiding part of himself from them, that he was afraid to talk to them. Clint is surprised that Patrick has been keeping this secret, that he hasn’t shared this important part of himself. But she’s not surprised. She knows how many things both of them have avoided talking about since Patrick left nearly two years ago. They’ve both tripped over the things left unsaid, pulled back from the dangerous edges of conversations, tried desperately to see across the gaps they were both leaving unfilled.

Talking to David brings some relief. She can see how much he loves her son, how he’s prepared to fight for him, how badly he wants to make things okay. She knows that Patrick’s party will be an emotional night for all of them, but she wants this chance to have the conversations they’ve been putting off since before Patrick loaded his things in his car and drove away. Maybe this is an opportunity to finally put things right, to remove the careful distance that stands between them.

After David and Johnny leave she sits on the corner of the bed and looks at Clint. 

“Thank god Patrick left home when he did.” 

“What?” Clint is clearly startled, for the past two years he’s listened to her worries about Patrick, her misgivings about his decision to leave.

“I can’t imagine how unhappy he must have been.” 

She knows now why he hadn’t been able to stay, why he had needed a clean break hundreds of miles from home. She’s starting to tear up a bit. Clint sits beside her and puts his arm around her shoulders. It’s only two o’clock and the day has already been an emotional rollercoaster. Despite that, all she feels is an overwhelming sense of relief from finally having everything out in the open. 

When Patrick comes into the cafe that night she can see the fear that’s hiding in the back of his eyes. She sees how he looks for David when he comes in the door, the two of them drawn to each other as though they’re magnetically charged. Once David lets him go, she hugs Patrick for an extra moment, happy and relieved to see him after all this time. 

It’s all she can do to let Patrick talk about David in his own way. She so badly wants to tell him that everything will be okay, that she loves him, that she likes David and wants to get to know him better. She watches Patrick relax as they reassure him and she notices again how he looks for David across the crowded room, she sees him smile as their eyes meet. 

She can see that Patrick wants to go to David. Before he can leave the booth, she reaches across the table and grasps his hands again. 

“I’m sorry if we made it harder for you to leave home and come here. We love you and we just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.” His voice is soft but his smile lights up the room. “Maybe it’s best if we both put our regrets behind us?”

She smiles back at him. “I’d like that. Very much.”

The week after they get home, Patrick calls. It’s eight o’clock on Thursday and it’s the second time he’s called that week. He’s laughing as he tells them about the extra dance lessons he’s been taking to get ready for Cabaret. 

“I’ve never worked so hard in my life. Although the real reward isn’t nailing the routine, it’s having David admit that he was impressed.”

She can hear David respond defensively in the background.

“Hang on a sec.” There’s a long pause before Patrick comes back to the phone. “David wants to talk to you.”

“I wasn’t that impressed.” 

“Hey!” Patrick’s voice is just audible through the phone.

“Okay, it was pretty impressive. They even do a lift.” 

“I wish we could be there to see it. David, be sure to get lots of photos.”

“I will.” His voice is soft as he promises.

She can tell David is proud of Patrick and listening to the two of them makes her laugh out loud. She’s talked to Patrick several times since his birthday and it’s like talking to a different person. She feels like she’s learned more about her son in the past two weeks than she had in the past two years or maybe even in the past twenty. Most of all, it’s his overwhelming joy that takes her breath away. It’s so all encompassing, that she can’t believe that he’d been able to hide it from them all this time.

She hangs up, smiling at their conversation. She had thought that she’d understood Patrick before he moved away, that they could talk about anything, but she knows now that this is who her son really is. This person who laughs so easily, who is fully and completely smitten with David Rose, is not someone she has ever seen before. She remembers the doubts she had when Patrick left and how she had struggled to believe that he was doing the right thing. If she had known two years ago that he would find such happiness she would have driven him to Schitt’s Creek herself without a regret in her heart.

It’s the night before the opening night of Cabaret when she gets a text from Patrick. It’s late. Worried that something has happened, she opens the text message to find a photo of him and David, David is showing off the four gold rings on his left hand for the camera. She reads the message underneath.

**10:34 pm: We’re getting married!**   
**10:35 pm: I wanted you to be the first to know.**


End file.
